The party that stole a Senate seat in the last election is now deeply concerned about the integrity of the Senate following the election of Family First Senator Lucy Gichuhi. After the Australian public voted last year, and after the AEC returned the vote count, the ALP changed it's mind on how to allocate long and short term Senate seats. The ALP reneged on promises made to use the new, fairer method to allocate seats, in the form of two bipartisan Senate resolutions in 1998 and 2010. This allowed NSW ALP Senator Deborah O'Neill to steal a 6 year Senate seat from Lee Rhiannon, who will face the polls in 3 years time instead of O'Neill.

The coalition also stole one seat, and both parties passed their theft of as 'fair and consistent with convention'. Major news outlets did not investigate past this whitewash and report on the broken promises.

The ALP and the coalition now refuse to answer any questions about how long and short term Senate seats should be allocated in future double dissolution elections, making it highly likely that we will go into the next one without a resolution to this matter. The result will be a self-interest free-for-all where whoever can gain control of the Senate will allocate themselves extra seats.

Family First's Lucy Gichuhi set to replace Bob Day in South Australian Senate seat

The high court has rejected another bid by the ALP to get Lucy Gichuhi excluded as a candidate in the special recount to fill Bob Day's vacant Senate seat in South Australia. The AEC is yet to return the official recount results and the APH website still lists the seat as vacant.

It has been confirmed that for both the earlier special recount in WA (in which Rod Culleton was replaced by Peter Georgiou) and (most likely) the SA recount, the AEC was instructed to conduct a full recount, effectively re-electing all 12 Senators. This had the potential to change not only the order in which Senators were elected (thus affecting the allocation of short and long term Senate seats) but also which Senators were elected. Prior to the recount, first preference votes for the excluded Senator were distributed to the second preference, and any later preferences for the excluded candidate were immediately passed on to the next indicated preference, if any.

In both recounts, only the excluded Senator was replaced. I can confirm that in the WA special recount, the order elected was also the same. For SA, the AEC has not yet published the detailed results of the special recount, so it remains unclear whether the order of election will be affected. In particular, if the sixth and seventh place are reversed, then under the method chosen by the Senate for 2016, the allocation of long and short term seats will change. In addition, the AEC has not published the half Senate count asociated with the special recount for either WA or SA, so it is unclear whether the allocation of Senate seats using the alternative method would have changed. For the SA recount, it remains unclear whether the Senate would honour any change to the order in which candidates are elected. The Senators most likely to be affected are Xenophon Senator Stirling Griff and Liberal Senator Anne Ruston. Griff currently holds the long term seat, so there is a risk that the Liberal Party would try to steal a second long term seat for Ruston, as they did for Scott Ryan in Victoria (at the expense of Derryn Hinch). The Liberal Party has not confirmed whether they would steal this seat, and the ALP have not indicated whether they would support this in order to remain consistent with their stance in 2016, or oppose it ut of self interest.

In the meantime, an ALP MP has misrepresented to me, in person, the mechanism used to conduct the special recount. I was misinformed by this MP that the recount will effectively start from where Day was elected and only consider the Senate seat occupied by Day. The truth is that all 12 seats were re-allocated. Although it was likely that the other 11 senate seats would remain unchanged, and the order elected would remain unchanged, this was by no means certain. Naturally, this ALP MP also declined to state how his party would respond to a change in the order in which Senators are elected.

As it currently stands, neither major party has commented on how they would respond to a change in the order in which SA Senators were elected.

Regarding the next double dissolution election, I have asked 12 Senators from one state how their party would handle the allocation of long and short term seats, in addition to a Labor MP. The Labor MP did not not provide an answer, but indicated a personal preference for the order-elected method, most likely as a way of towing the aprty line regarding the theft of seats in 2016. A One Nation Senator has indicated support for the recount method, but was mistaken regarding which method was used in 2016. One LNP Senator has responded with a non-answer. Another LNP Senator has responded with a vague answer that could be interpreted as support for the LNP's right to decide after the votes come in, based on whether they have an opportunity to steal more seats or prevent their opponents from doing so, or could be interpreted as support for the order-elected method. No ALP Senator have responded.

According to Antony Green, if the special recount resulted in the unelection of another senator, it would be up to the court to decide or possibly change the orders under which the special recount is conducted. It is also unclear whether the Senate is permitted to revisit the allocation of long and short term senate seats.

There have been two similar cases of Senate special recounts to replace a Senator: Robert Wood in 1987 and Heather Hill in 1998. Only the 1998 case was for a regular half Senate election. The 1987 and two 2016 cases were for full senate (double dissolution) elections.

The AEC does not appear to publish the preference distributions for the 1998 or 1987 elections as they do for more recent ones. The do publish the order elected for 1998, after the special recount. So I am unable to check whether the order of election was affected in the past.

It all gets down to good old jealousy - Labor missed out so suddenly everything is wrong with the rules - talk about sag grapes.

Thank Heavens Labor did not get another senator to further block any and everything needed to repair the shocking damage done to Australia during those six sick years of Socialist Labor waste and disgrace.

PHOTO: Lucy Gichuhi was second on the Family First ticket in South Australia.

Hope this sheila is an Australian patriot like Pauline who sleeps between Australian Flag sheets.

Do you realise the Liberal party voted to steal another seat for the Labor party after 2019? The Liberals went into the 2016 election promising to use the new, fairer, recount method to allocate long and short term senate seats. They changed their mind after the vote counting was done. They handed Labor's Deborah O'Neill an extra three years in the Senate that she did not deserve.

Gandalf supports this backflip, on the grounds that a politician's promise regarding a key a constitutional convention automatically expires before they get a single chance to fulfill that promise.